Re: Corpora: NLP AND THE BEST THEORY OF SYNTAX

Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D. (bralich@hawaii.edu)
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 09:14:36 -1000

At 12:52 AM 2/18/98 -1000, Paul Rayson wrote:
>> 2) since computers have the ability to represent and execute
>> binary algorithms, any theory that is composed of binary algorithms should
>> be able to be implemented in a programming language. Thus, any theory of
>
>Can you tell me what a binary algorithm is?

Its just a short hand way of saying that there is a binary logic (on or off)
behind the theoretical mechanisms in theories of syntax for which there is no
principaled reason that they cannot be encoded in programming language. Note
the PS rules below for "the cat sat on the mat":

S --> NP VP
NP --> (det) N
det --> the, a
N --> cat, mat
V --> sat

A thing is or is not present or does or does not meet the above definitions and
all of this can be encoded in a programming language. If someone could
demonstrate rules of syntax that could not be encoded in a program they would
not fall into this on or off type of collection of primes and operators.

Certainly in the areas of pragmatics or semantics these things may not work
so neatly, but the sort of rules that are proposed for syntax never have a
form that in principle cannot be encoded in a program.

Phil Bralich

Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Ergo Linguistic Technologies
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Honolulu, HI 96822

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